To mark the release today of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in honour of the best in all of us:

Washing the World

 

In the dark

in the bitter wind

listen to a dream

in which grandmothers stand

shoulder to shoulder, on the rim of a hill

and bend as one, and grasp one thing together

 

ask them, in the dream world, why

do they cry… and they will show you in reply

their shawls of many colours, spread these wings

sweep you in and teach you how to wash the world

 

 

from one dawn to the next

remember the fallen

mourning for the broken

wailing for regrets

love lost, wrong words, wrong actions

unbalanced moments and all the cracks

between heart and heart, parent and child

lover and beloved friend, nation and nation

creature, and creature of another kind

 

for what we choose and what we neglect to choose

for what we wish we’d known

for the hand unclasped

the tongue unbridled

the whisper falling short of heard

the bread far from the hunger

the apology

the confusion

the broken road

 

these things we gather in this blanket

brown and sand and beige

and we wash the world, between us

we hold this blanket, fill it with our tears

and when we have cried

from one dawn to the next

then we rise, and we dance

cradling this ocean, bitter healing, dark

 

let them lay your hands upon the truth of beauty lost

heavy, soft as moss

 

this blanket full of tears and dust and dying

becomes, as the light is returning

the promise

washed clean

by our sorrow

 

not so much redemption

as the logic of seasons

calls for justice, to restore the rhythm

one day, the lawmakers must exit their echoing halls

fall in with the grandmothers

dancing

carrying it

cried clean

until

light through their bodies

translates to rainbows upon the land.

 

All My Relations

ams